


It's That Pivotal Moment

by polytropic



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack, Fix-It, Multi, more kissing less killing thx, pre-Audrey/Duke/Jennifer/Nathan but only in my head really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 16:59:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7692403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polytropic/pseuds/polytropic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Audrey uses her imagination. </p>
<p>(This is an attempt to salve my rage so I don't get quite so overwhelmingly annoyed very time I watch episodes 4.12-13)</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's That Pivotal Moment

**Author's Note:**

> Look I'm not saying this is how Season 4 of Haven should have ended, I'm just saying if it had, the hiatus between 4 and 5 would have been a lot more interesting. And that just once I would like not-at-all-true-love's kiss to save the day.
> 
> Content warning for dubiously consensual kissing: all parties consent but they do so under serious duress. 
> 
> Title is from "This Kiss" by Faith Hill. Because I'm hilarious.

Audrey shouldn't be doing this. She _knows_ she shouldn't, but the problem is, she can't find any words or understanding to use to explain why. And that's not good enough right now, with people dropping dead in groups of three, four, five at a time, lives _ending_ , for good, no take-backs. 'I don't want to' doesn't cut it, and what's more, doesn't really...fit. 

On some level, she wants to. It's like the perverse instinct that sometimes drives her to keep eating even when she's full; she doesn't want to, but she feels pulled towards it nevertheless, and 'want' is the only word she knows to describe that sensation even though it both fits and doesn't.

She wants to give Duke back his Trouble, even as it's literally the last thing in the world she wants to do. And she can't find a reason not to, she can't find another way. She's supposed to be the one who finds another way. It's on her. This failure, these deaths? They're on her.

Duke made his peace, somehow, enough to ask this of her. So did Ben. So does Gloria, sobbing. Audrey must do the same. She owes them this, for failing them. She has to do what they ask.

She lets Nathan lead her out into the garden. It's beautiful in the afternoon light. Duke comes up the path; Jennifer is behind him, her mouth and eyes sharp and angry when she turns to Audrey. Audrey has a moment of hope that Jennifer has come up with something, anything else, but she takes a position silently behind her, practically vibrating with suppressed rage. Audrey's glad someone can be uncomplicatedly angry about what's going on, at least.

"Are we doing this?" she asks Duke, voice quiet like she's in church. _Say no. Say no._

"Oh, we're doing this."

She takes out the weird black stuff from the box, crumbles it into her palm. Duke's breathing speeds up; he's trying so hard not to show that he's scared, but who exactly does he think he's going to fool? His family is standing all around him, they know exactly what that wideness of his eyes means.

_You know me_ , he said. She does, she reminds herself nervously. Knows him as well as she knows anyone in this world, maybe even better than Nathan because Nathan has this incredible capacity to grow and surprise her in unexpected ways. She knows Duke, and she has to, because this has to come from his _heart_. William said that the key to a Trouble is that it's about release. That it gives people the ability to let out something inside of them. She rejected that because he called it a gift, and obviously it's not a gift, that's bullshit, but there's something there. The idea of...catharsis, perhaps, or maybe just honesty. A genuine expression of something, twisted by evil but powerful because it's true.

Audrey takes a deep breath and, as she reaches her hand towards Duke's chest, thinks about her memory of him as his most honest, most genuine self.

There is a shock when her palm connects. It radiates from the point of contact, out towards the water and the town. (A mile or so away, William looks up and says, "Are you fucking kidding me.") The world whites out around her, goes vanilla-smooth and sweet, and she remembers...

Hah. That's what she remembers.

Audrey re-focuses on Duke, right in front of her, terrified and trying not to let her see, and starts laughing.

"That's...not the reaction I was expecting," he says. Her hand is still on his chest, and he slowly peels it off while she laughs, helplessly, even harder. There's a handprint left behind, glowing a kind of amber color with hints of that sooty grey that the mysterious substance was. "Audrey? Please be Audrey."

"Parker?" Nathan comes up behind her, his voice sharp with worry hes trying to pretend he doesn't feel.

"It's me, it's me," she gasps, and tries to get herself under control. Gloria, Jennifer and Ben are staring at her. It's a very inappropriate reaction for the gravity of the situation.

If they think _this_ is inappropriate, wait until she tells them what comes next, she realizes, and starts laughing all over again.

"Okay, this did not happen last time." Duke is now supporting her by her arm while she tries not to weep with what is probably approaching hysterical mirth.

"No, it definitely didn't. Parker? Do you..." Nathan starts, and she's not sure where he was going to go with that, but it doesn't matter because she finally manages to wipe her streaming eyes, straighten up under her own power, and get a grip.

"Sorry, sorry, that just hit me a little hard. I'm okay."

"You're sure." Nathan ducks his head down so he can look her in the eyes. She shakes herself a little, reminds herself that even if she feels a growing bubble of relief and joy, there are still lives riding on getting this done fast.

"Yeah. Duke, stay right here, we can fix this right now if you listen to me very carefully."

Duke was trying to slink away, which is reasonable under the circumstances, but which she can't allow. "I know how the Crocker curse works, Audrey. Give me a damn second."

"You don't know how it works any more." He freezes. So does Nathan, at her side. "I changed it."

"You can do that?" Jennifer asks--demands, really, her anger understandably has not faded. "Since when?"

"Since about a minute ago when I realized." It's hard to sort it all through with everyone now staring at her, and they don't really have time to get into it, but she's pretty sure she got the idea of what to do _as_ her hand was making contact. _That's cutting it pretty close to the wire on saving the day, Officer Parker. Let's try it a little sooner next time._ "I couldn't have given him the same Trouble as before, anyways. I can't give the exact same one twice."

"How do you..." Duke's eyes have gone narrow and suspicious. He saw that moment earlier, when something cruel and spiteful rose within her. He knows that she got this new knowledge from something evil within her. She doesn't really want to have that conversation right now.

"Never mind that. Ben, come here?" She beckons. Ben Harker straightens his shoulders and walks to them like he's going to his execution. He isn't, not any more. Audrey wonders if she should try to explain, but she's feeling the time pressure now, the knowledge that the baby might wake up at any minute. Also it's going to be funnier not to.

"Duke, you care about Ben, right?"

"Uh." Duke starts to make a constipated sort of man-feelings face. He must read in her gaze that they don't have time for that, though, because he does an awkward foot-shuffle and mumbles, "Sure?"

"Would you do anything for him, right now? Anything you could to help?"

"Anything? I don't..." Duke trails off. "Well, honestly, I was--am--willing to kill him. So...yeah. Probably, yeah."

"Parker where are you going with this?"

"Shush, Nathan." Audrey knows they're pressed for time, but a big part of her is cackling in glee at what she gets to say now. "All right, Duke. I need you to kiss Ben."

There's a moment of utterly baffled silence.

"Woah, _no_." Ben takes several steps back, as if he's worried Duke is going to lunge for him right then and there.

"Seriously?" Audrey groans. No homo? Now?

"You're willing to _die_ but you won't let me put my mouth on your mouth?" Duke says, incredulous, and Ben makes a face and stands still.

"Is this some kind of joke?" Gloria demands.

"It's not. I would not joke right now." Audrey sobers. "Duke? Do it. Before the baby wakes up."

Duke winces like she and everything in Haven is giving him a headache, but he nods. Then he glances at Jennifer, eyebrows raised. She lets out high-pitched huff.

"So you didn't ask my opinion before volunteering to get re-Crocked-cursed, or agreeing to kill someone, but this, _this_ you ask permission for?! Ugh, yes, go, _go_." She makes impatient and mildly disgusted little shooing motions with her hands at him.

"Okay, _okay_. Ben?" Ben nods. He braces himself (only slightly less than when he thought Duke was going to kill him), and Duke bends down. 

"You have to _mean_ it," Audrey cautions him, and he pauses. His eyes flick to her briefly, then he nods and presses his mouth to Ben's. It's a strange tableau, all of them watching, but it's also kind of beautiful in a weird way. Duke starts out with his eyes open; his hands raise as if they're going to cup Ben's face and then he clearly thinks better of it and rests them on his shoulders instead. Ben isn't really helping or hindering, just staying still, but he closes his eyes and that seems to signal Duke to do the same. His shoulders drop a little, then, and he tilts his head just slightly, his neck not at such a carefully stiff angle.

That's it. That's the memory she felt, when she touched something inside of Duke and used that weird grey stuff to let it out: she remembered that moment when she realized that the core of him, the fundamental basis of who he was, was this instinct to _give_. The Crocker Trouble was so much about taking, and really, honestly, that didn't fit him in the least. She's never seen Duke take something not freely offered (okay, except, like, pens and candy and small mildly valuable things that are easy to pocket, whatever, not important), but she sees him give possessions and loyalty and time and money and effort and care away every day, like he can't help himself, natural as breathing. She can't see how she could possibly have tied this new Trouble to anything else, not when she saw, as vivid as when it first happened, that moment in Colorado when he said 'I would do anything for you' and kissed her.

Slowly, Duke pulls away and straightens. His eyes flutter open. Jennifer gasps and Nathan's head come up sharply as they recognize the familiar silver color.

"That was...interesting." Duke is breathing a little hard, reaches up with one hand to touch his mouth and then drops it again as the silver fades from his irises. "It didn't...that wasn't how it used to feel."

"Is that a good thing?" Jennifer asks, her voice careful and her hand gentle as she rests it on his arm.

"Yeah. You know the-the rush? It wasn't like that. Less heroin, more...sip of scotch." 

"Did it work?" Ben rubs his mouth briefly, looking a little dazed, but the worry comes back into his eyes almost immediately. "How will we know?"

As if on cue, from inside there comes a sharp, rising wail. Audrey's breath catches. Gloria moans, horrified, and Ben dashes inside. They all follow him, as if their proximity will somehow make a difference to the outcome. Ben picks up his son with frantic care and he quiets, but there were a good ten seconds of crying. If the Trouble is still active, more people are dead.

They all wait. No cries of alarm from the neighbors. No sirens. Audrey and Nathan stare at their phones, waiting for dispatch notifications; none arrive. A minute ticks by. Two minutes. Someone would have called in a body by now.

"It worked." Gloria breaks the silence by saying what none of them were willing to commit to. "It worked. Oh, kiddo, you did it." She drags Duke into a hug. He's so surprised he can't manage to hug her back fully, only gets his arm up halfway. He meets Audrey's eyes over her shoulder. As Gloria moves to hug Ben and Aaron, Duke makes his way over to Audrey and Nathan and draws them back out into the garden, away from the tearful scene of this family's nightmare finally ending.

"How did you know how to do this?" Duke asks, eyes fixed on Audrey. He's not quite accusing, not really, but she knows what he's saying nevertheless.

"I did feel her. The woman William wants. She's in there," she admits.

"But you're stronger. You beat her back," Nathan says. His voice is firm but his eyes are begging her to confirm that that's true.

"I don't know if it was really a fight. It was...I think she saw what I was trying to do and thought it would be funny. She didn't fight me on it." It's their combined gazes that compels her to add, "If she had, I'm not sure I would have won."

"You would have." Nathan really, really wants to have faith in her. She loves that, and she needs that right now, but she also needs Duke's furrowed brow of concern.

"Either way. Giving a Trouble, or even modifying it? I can't do that again."

"You modified his Trouble?" Audrey's gun is in her hand before she's even turned around. William grins at her, that stupid open-mouthed gawp like he's having a grand old time, from where he's leaning on the garden gate. Reluctantly, she lowers her weapon; it's not like it can do her any good. She sees Nathan do the same from the corner of her eye.

William saunters towards them until he's standing in front of her, and huffs out an impressed half-laugh. "Your second time out of the gate, and you manage to tweak an existing Trouble? I gotta say, wow."

"Well, only by two letters." He laughs, as if that joke was for him. It wasn't.

"And? How did it feel?"

"It felt great."

"I _knew_ it--"

Audrey cuts him off hard. "It felt great because I was thinking about how much I cared about Duke. And how happy I was that I wasn't going to hurt him."

"Ugh." William's face collapses into a look of disgust. "I'm gonna be honest, babe, you're really starting to piss me off with this Audrey Parker Happy Friends Time crap."

Audrey can tell that he's thinking, right now, of what he's going to force her to do next. She doesn't know if she's drawing on some past knowledge of him from that horrible other self, or if it's her experience as an FBI profiler at work here, but either way she can practically chart the body count rising in his eyes. He's not going to stop. He needs to _be_ stopped.

"Nathan, get ready to catch me," she says over her shoulder, and then turns to William with a huge, sunny smile. "Hey, you should be happy."

"What the hell should I be happy?" Aw, he's so sour when things don't go his way, poor serial killer.

"I finally took your advice and had some fun with it." The bunch of her muscle as she brings her arm back and the solid, painful smack as she punches William straight across the jaw is one of the best things she's ever felt. She feels her own head snap sideways and her vision start to black out, and hopes Nathan obeyed her directive. Either way, William goes down like a sack of bricks, and Duke's delighted whoop is the last thing she hears before she faints.


End file.
